


Kaze no Landfall

by Aureliann



Category: Rune Factory 4, Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Crossover, Developing Friendships, Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Moving On, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Personal Growth, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 18:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30144099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aureliann/pseuds/Aureliann
Summary: A sweet wind blows through a familiar field, once tended to by practiced hands…Normally left untouched by its residents, the natural beauty of Stardew Valley is under siege by encroaching corporate forces. More than simply a sign of the times, the land development plans of Joja Corp are a threat to the earth itself – Pelican Town sits on a vital well of runic energy, having once been one of the many farms cultivated by Lady Frey, immortal Dragon Priest of the Elder Dragon Ventuswill. Of course, Lady Frey is still alive and kicking. Unfortunately, she’s been a hermit in the Forest of Beginnings ever since the last descendants of Selphia passed on. It’s only at the prodding of Ventuswill that Frey decides to try out modern life for herself, moving to Stardew Valley to run Joja Corp out of town – and, hopefully, rekindle a connection to her own humanity by learning to love despite the inevitable.Only Ventuswill knows what a bunch of townies will do with an centuries-old warrior with two swords, special earth magic, and a history book’s worth of emotional baggage.
Relationships: Frey & Ventuswill (Rune Factory), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Kudos: 2





	Kaze no Landfall

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first ever fanfiction! After being a voyeur on Ao3 for so long, I figured I'd give it a shot, since I could use the writing practice. I don't have a beta, so please let me know if you catch any typos. I also don't mind constructive criticism, but keep in mind that this is very much just a hobby for me. 
> 
> You don't really need to know anything about Rune Factory 4 or Stardew Valley to understand what's going on, but it would probably help clarify the random lore I sprinkle in that I don't attach a thorough explanation to. This story takes place during the events of Stardew Valley and draws on the events of Rune Factory 4 as history and character backstory. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! Comments and kudos are appreciated. :)

“Frey…you’re definitely going to need to change.”

Someone less practiced than Selphia’s official Dragon Priestess might call the look on Ventuswill’s face “judgmental.” If you asked Selphia’s official Dragon Priestess, she would call it “rude” and “completely uncalled for.”

Frey crossed her arms with a huff. “What’s wrong with my armor?” Ventuswill, practiced herself when it came to her Priestess, rolled her eyes.

“That’s just it: it’s armor. The mortal world isn’t exactly a battlefield anymore” – she paused – “well, not everywhere. Not where you’re going.” She gave Frey a considering once-over, draconic frame pacing around her for a full view. Frey’s ensemble was standard fare for the late Selphian period in Norad: form-fitting canvas pants, tall leather boots with treated brass shin and knee guards, high-collared sleeveless tunic, long, fingerless black gloves and polished bracers. Instead of standard faulds, she had a flexible leather breastplate shielding her chest and stomach, lined carefully on the inside with chain mail. From her hips hung the layered plates of reinforced tassets, and pulled snugly around her waist was a blacksmith’s leather utility belt. Instead of a helm, she indulged in a hoodless cowl: royal purple inside with gold trim, pinned together at her throat by a traditional Selphian triple-diamond and braid insignia. Beneath Ventuswill’s appraising eye, she touched it gently. Ventuswill hummed consideringly. “I mean, you should bring it, at least. But they have different clothing for when they’re not fighting, and it’s a lot less…metal…parts. And leather pouches.”

Frey frowned. “I like my pouches.”

“And I like that you like them! But they’ll look at you funny, and the whole point is to reintegrate, not alienate.”

“Venti, I don’t know…”

“Look,” Ventuswill sighed. “It’s ok if you’re not ready yet, but it’s been a really, really long time.” Frey turned her head away, jaw clenching and unclenching, a flush spreading across the bridge of her nose. “I won’t invalidate things by suggesting you should regret deciding to stay.” Ventuswill let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I also won’t pretend I’m not selfishly happy you’ve been keeping me company for the last century or so.” She laid down, carefully wrapping herself around Frey, who slid down to the ground along her scales and rested against the slow rise and fall of Ventuswill’s midsection. For a minute or two, the Elder Dragon and her immortal attendant sat in companionable silence.

“I can’t be enough for you forever.”

Startled, Frey whipped around, smacking Ventuswill’s flank. “Venti!” she cried, expression heartbroken but stern. “Don’t ever say that!” Ventuswill shook her head fondly.

“No, it’s not a bad thing,” she chuckled. “It just _is_. Here in the Forest of Beginnings, I can feel _everything_ – all of Selphia’s life and energy and hope.” She stretched out her wings to their full span, the strange, white light of wild magic filtering through her feathers in the colors of simultaneous cerulean sunrise and amber sunset. The sight was always humbling, even for an immortal. “Don’t forget, Frey – I am the Divine Wind,” she intoned. Ancient grey eyes met pale green, a faded echo of the kaleidoscope of irises she’d seen in all her time before. “I was here before you, and I will be here long after everything that’s alive out there right now. Life itself has different meaning for me. You’re _human_ , for all your power. Surely you always knew you’d have to go back, someday.” Ventuswill’s voice was gentle, but her words refused to be ignored. “I can’t let you languish away like this. Do you think you could try, just one more time? If not for yourself, for me? For everyone?”

Frey’s responding exhale was almost a laugh, made faint by the rush of old grief in her solar plexus and inner ear. She tilted her head back and tried to smile up at Ventuswill, eyes scrunched shut. It came out as a more of closed-mouth grimace. “Ah, that’s cheating!” she said, throat tight around forced cheer. “There’s no way I can back out now. Besides,” Frey opened her eyes, exchanging her grimace for a smirk, “At least I’ll have all my memories this time. Do you think the standards for declaring random strangers Princesses have risen after all these years, or do I just have to fall off an airship again?"

Ventuswill guffawed exaggeratedly. “Keep that up, and I’m sure it could be arranged!” Then, something seemed to occur to her: “Actually, speaking of Princesses.”

“What?”

“You’ve got quite a lot of history to catch up on if you don’t want to play ‘push-over amnesiac’ again.”

“Hey!”

* * *

The Forest of Beginnings was never exactly meant for mortal minds to comprehend. Less a forest than an infinite plane of endless light and glowing flowers, it didn’t take special care to comfort the monsters who arrived there after death with any sort of familiar décor or laws of physics. The only constant was the flow of time, the same within as it was without – perhaps unlike human souls, monster souls were never too far displaced out of time when they returned to reality. It was a remarkable anomaly for two creatures – immortal or otherwise – to stay long enough to be considered residents in any sense of the word. But something about being observed so continuously fundamentally changed the Forest in the places it was being watched, and Frey and Ventuswill, in simply calling the Forest a forest, made it more alike its counterpart in the mortal realm than ever before. Tentative archetypes of trees emerged from the void; attempts at grassland and underbrush wriggled into existence; the glowing “flowers” could be reasonably called as such more and more by the day. As much as it could, the Forest seemed to have a particular fondness for sprouting mushrooms of varying design and plausibility. It largely went with a natural palette but dabbled in ethereal purples and blues. Ever-present was the wash of white light, emanating from everywhere, with no defining source. Neither could the Forest sharpen the softness of its outlines in periphery, nor dull the otherworldly luminance within all its constructs.

_Ventuswill is right_ , Frey thought, sightlessly watching her reflection in a bottomless stream. _You can’t live in a dream forever._ As accommodating as the Forest had become, it could never be real to her like it could for Ventuswill. The dragon who ruled over the abyss of time could feel the heartbreak of losing people to its ever-expanding depths, certainly – _Amber, Dylas, Dolce, Leon_ – but she could also find a solace unfathomable to those beings born to free-fall in it, into darkness and obscurity. No human, not even an Earthmate, was built to withstand the endless cycle of loving others from outside the mortal coil and then letting them spiral out of reach, grasping hands only to let them go. Of the many denizens and descendants of Selphia from when it still had its name, Frey – once their Princess, then their Priestess – was the last. Of course, it was no failure to lose to time; still, Frey felt an aimless guilt at not having joined them, as if she’d let her children walk home alone. Though pride had never been her vice, giving up now felt too much like shamelessly laying down to die. But she was so _tired_. If anything, it was becoming increasingly difficult to put dignity before eternal rest. Did she really have to be happy before she died?

As if she could hear her thoughts, Ventuswill broke her quiet vigil from beside her: “I just want you to be in your right mind when you decide what you want. Right now, I’m not so sure you are.” Frey ran her hands through the grass, fighting the senseless urge to pull up tufty clumps. She knew she was ready to go back to earth, if not to make decisions about sacred oaths and immortality.

“Yeah, I know,” Frey said. “I’m just…nervous? Um, I don’t know.” Lucky for her that Ventuswill cared little for pointless affectation after all this time, even less for enforcing perfect eloquence in her attendants. So many years since complex communication with other people, and Frey’s social and emotional acumen was like the withered muscle of a retired sword master. She and Ventuswill were functionally telepathic by now; she doubted the townspeople would be nearly as easy to read, or nearly as adept at reading _her_. Ventuswill only nuzzled closer, offering her a downy wing and time to pull herself together. Frey basked in wordless understanding, praying it would keep her for the coming age. “I remember something my mother told me once,” she started softly, “before they took me away for training. Something my people would do, when they had to move on, and live.” Ventuswill hummed encouragingly. “She said, ‘Our hair represents what is important to us in this world. It takes time and care to grow, like everything else that really matters.’”

When Frey stopped, lost to the Forest’s muted quiet, Ventuswill carefully spoke. “For someone who wasn’t an Earthmate, she really knew what she was talking about.” Frey nodded soundlessly and leaned forward to dip her fingertips in the water, continuing.

“She had asked me if I knew why forest fires happened. I don’t remember what I said” – a beat – “Actually, I don’t even remember what she looked like.” Frey shook her head. “Not important. Anyway, I know _she_ said, ‘New growth can begin after controlled burn’ – like with Fiersome and Terrable, I guess.” At the mention of her estranged brothers, the gods of destruction and resurrection, Ventuswill huffed, but stayed mum. “And then she told me that if I ever needed to start over, I should cut my hair, no matter how long it was.” Frey finally turned to Ventuswill directly, hopeful surrender written on her face, and Ventuswill knew she’d be alright. “I doubt this is what she was imagining when she suggested that.”

Ventuswill lowered her head to Frey’s lap, closing her eyes against a rush of bittersweet affection. “Well,” she said, her voice thick but amused. “I wouldn’t be so quick to make that assumption, knowing how you are.” Frey gently poked her snout in retaliation.

“I thought you said that true clairvoyance was a myth,” Frey snarked.

Ventuswill snorted air into the grass. “Yes, but maybe she was like you. Or rather, she figured you’d be like her. Uh, in a more generally plausible way.”

Frey hummed absently. “I guess I’ll never know.” _At least,_ she thought, _that’s one loss that never hurt so acutely._

From a scabbard at her waist, she unsheathed her knife.

* * *

The so-called “skinny jeans” were fashionable, she gave them that. And the boots were just shorter versions of her usual staple. But her wrists felt exposed without her bracers, covered only by a slate blue, long-sleeved compression shirt. In place of her armor was an olive green fitted and high-necked gilet – hardly battle-worthy, but Ventuswill promised she didn’t need to be.

Frey wasn’t so sure. Although, the strange looks she kept getting could’ve been because of the horrible haircut she’d given herself. Maybe the other passengers on this vehicle could tell she’d hacked it off with a knife. Ventuswill said that people from this area of the world no longer carried weapons as casually, since monsters were either secluded away from humanity or domesticated, these days. Frankly, Frey didn’t see how that precluded other people from raising sword and shield against each other. Ventuswill didn’t have a response to that one. Her knowledge of current events was not as complete as she would’ve liked, but Frey was used to working with little preparation. That, and she’d definitely snuck Twin Justice back with her, each sword disguised as a metal ring on the middle finger of each hand.

After centuries of stillness in the Forest of Beginnings, the real world felt so…loud. Though this – Ventuswill had called it a “bus” – though the bus was certainly quieter than an airship, it made all the noise she expected a steel box on wheels to make. The road crunched beneath the bus as if it were a great beast chewing it into little pieces of gravel. Every time she tried to rest her head against the window, attempting in vain to ignore the constant vibrations, the bus hit a bump and slammed her temple against the glass. Sure, she didn’t want to seem too strange by suddenly manifesting in front of the townsfolk by magic, and Leon Karnak was surely nothing more than an unusable ruin by now, but couldn’t Heaven’s Gate have spat her out somewhere a _little_ closer to her destination?

Ah, well. _Better to start on a low note and go up from there_ , she decided. _Better still to get used to being overwhelmed, at least for a little while_. In terms of sensory input, the Forest was bright, but not much else. It never could manage to replicate the damp grit of good soil, or the scent of changing seasons; it never even had weather. _How long has it been since I’ve seen twilight? Rain? The ocean?_ She fiddled with her rings. _Wow. I sound insane. Like some kind of long-term prisoner,_ Frey mused. _Actually, that’s not too far off. But I don’t think it counts if you’re your own warden._ At the very least, Frey could confirm that the sky was still blue; there were still large swathes of untouched, open land, from what she’d seen on her infinitely long bus ride; and – _I was right, Venti_ – people still got into arguments, from what she could glean from the obnoxious conversation another passenger was having with the voice emanating from their hand-held communication device.

“Hey, miss? With the green hair?” Frey didn’t exactly startle out of her internal dialogue, but it was close.

“Sorry, yes?” Her words came out with a slight, untraceable accent. The bus driver likely assumed she was foreign; in actuality, he was probably more of a foreigner to these lands than she – also, Frey had only started learning the modern dialect a few days ago, supplementing what she didn’t understand with a pocket dictionary and translation spell. The bus driver, oblivious to all this, smiled indulgently at her from the large rear-view mirror.

“We’re comin’ up on the Stardew Valley stop in a minute. Make sure you’ve got all your things, ‘cause I ain’t comin’ back,” he joked. Frey smiled and briefly inclined her head in his direction.

“Right, thank you!” Taking his advice, she lifted her large backpack from where it sat between her ankles onto her lap, twisting around to put it on. She quickly ran through her depressingly short mental checklist, patting each item as she went along: _bag, check. Swords, check. Um, self…check. That’s everything._

Just in time, too; the bus rolled to a stop at a clearing seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The only indication the driver had the right place was the pictographic bus on a rusted yellow sign, which sprouted at such a severe angle from the dirt it looked as if it were trying to get away from itself. Beside the sign on a dusty pathway stood a woman with bright orange hair, tied half-up half-down. She was dressed not unlike Frey herself, in a yellow top and fur-trimmed vest, green cargo pants tucked into worn leather boots. _That must be Robin_ , Frey realized. Ventuswill had mentioned her when they’d been putting together Frey’s cover story.

Perhaps cover story was too charged a phrase; Frey wasn’t _lying_ , per say. Pelican Town had simply made it easy for anybody looking to move in to do so without having to divulge any personal details outside of whether or not said “anybody” owned the deed to the farmland they’d put up for sale. Nobody necessarily needed to know that Frey had paid for it by trading solid gold for “cash.” Or that the land that she’d bought was probably still rightfully hers regardless of any kind of modern property law, since Pelican Town was built on an old settlement of hers from a relatively short-lived nomadic phase. None of that would help her reacclimate to life outside the Forest. It was easier for all parties involved, she and Ventuswill agreed, if Frey was just a foreign girl with a past she didn’t like to talk about that had experience in farming and wanted a fresh start. Except for the foreign part, all of this was true. It was just not _all of the truth_.

Frey could live with being only half of herself if it was in the name of duty. That was ultimately why she’d agreed to return, they both knew; of course, she recognized that Ventuswill hoped for more self-care than world-saving and had proposed this entire affair knowing Frey couldn’t resist a call to action. It’s not that she wouldn’t try; but even her typical relentless optimism – or faith in her own stubbornness – was more sheer grit than hope.

Ventuswill had said that Robin would be the one to greet her when she arrived in town, since their local official – called a “Mayor” – was busy. Even now it was unclear what with, or what qualified Robin as the best person to introduce new neighbors. Frey supposed she’d find out soon enough. Tugging at her backpack straps, she stood and gave a slight bow to the driver in thanks (he raised an eyebrow in polite bemusement) and stepped off the bus onto the dirt. She put on her bravest smile.

_Dear Venti_ …

_The air here is sweet._


End file.
